Hybrid Living

With the oil spill bringing us down more and more each day, it’s always nice to hear of something good happening off shore, especially when it has to do with clean energy, the true solution to oil spills.

So, here’s some good news: the Department of Energy has awarded the state of Maine $20 million to further their development of deep water offshore wind energy.

Maine has selected three test sites for wind power development off the state’s coast, and the University of Maine, which has been conducting research and testing on offshore wind power, has a demonstration site of its own off Monhegan Island. All of those projects are set to be funded by this award.

Maine is part of the newly-founded Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium, along with nine other states and the Interior department, that is working to streamline site review and analysis for offshore wind development.  The consortium, along with these new funds, should help more East Coast wind projects make it past the drawing board.

via Renewable Energy World

The Solar Impulse, a solar-powered, single-seater plane, achieved its first successful daytime flight just a few months ago and now we’re about to see if it can fly at night.

The plane will takeoff from Payerne airbase in Switzerland on Thursday morning, fly around Switzerland and eastern France and then land early the next morning — the plane’s first round-the-clock flight. The team says the plane will need 25 hours of clear summer weather to successfully complete the the flight.

The plane’s wings are covered in 12,000 solar cells which charge the batteries.  Those juiced up batteries are responsible for powering the plane’s four electric motors and that power storage is what the plane will rely on when flying in the dark.

Since its inaugural flight, the Solar Impulse has completed ten daytime flights.  If this test is successful, the team will continue working towards its ultimate goal of flying around the world non-stop in 2013 or 2014.

via PhysOrg

Massive concentrations of garbage have been discovered where ocean currents meet.  The Great Pacific garbage patch, the largest of them all, has inspired a team to sail a boat made out of recycled plastic to bring attention to the giant problem.  Others have been discovered in the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere around the world and the latest news is that one could be forming in Antarctica.

Ocean surveys conducted by British scientists in the austral summer of 2007-2008 found plastic debris floating on the surface even in the remote areas of the Davis, Durmont D’Urville and Amundsen Seas.  Luckily, dragging of the seabed found it to be clean.  The researchers think the garbage is the farthest reach of a tide of plastic that will most likely keep growing.

The picture above shows all known ocean garbage patches.

via Discovery News

Image via Wikipedia

The Seine, the scenic river running through Paris, has inspired artists, attracted tourists and served as the soul of the city, and now it will also be a source of renewable energy.  Paris officials have announced a plan to place river turbines beneath four bridges on the Seine.

The Pont du Garigliano, Pont de la Tournelle, Pont Marie and Pont au Change will each have two turbines installed underwater at their base.  These bridges were chosen because the speed of the current accelerates in those locations.  While river currents don’t produce the kind of electricity that wave power can, the current-harvesting technology has come a long way and more devices are being introduced that can generate energy from even the slowest moving waters.

City officials have put a call out to power companies to come up with the best plan for installing the turbines, with a winner being chosen in January and installations starting next spring.

via The Guardian

There are lots of consequences of a warming world, a lot of them easy to infer and understand (i.e. melting glaciers), but some consequences have come to light that weren’t so expected, like a reduction in crop nutritional value and, now, an increase in space junk orbiting the earth.

Scientists at the University of Southampton have studied the orbits of 30 satellites over the past 40 years and discovered that they’re taking longer to drop out of orbit and burn up.  The scientists think that increased CO2 in the upper atmosphere is causing it to cool and become less dense, slowing the braking effect and allowing satellites and spent rockets to circle for longer.

The researchers measured a five percent reduction in density every decade at an altitude or 300 kilometers, leading to an increase in orbit time of up to 25 percent.

More space junk does pose a danger for spacecraft launches and will require more debris removal by space agencies, but with the scaling back of our nation’s space program and bigger problems down here on the ground, it’s not likely to become a major issue.

via New Scientist

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize competition isn’t the only competition of green vehicles going on right now. The American Solar Challenge is also underway, with the teams racing solar powered cars from Oklahoma to Illinois over 7 days of competition. This year is the 20th anniversary of the competition, which began with the first Sunrayce in 1990. Seventeen teams from universities in the US, Canada, Germany, and Taiwan are racing the 1200 mile (1931 km) course which is due to finish in Naperville, Illinois on Saturday.

Though these are still very limited, specialized vehicles, the performance that the teams have been able to get from these vehicles is impressive. Some of the vehicles taking part in the competition have tested at over 100 mph (161 kph), although they are limited to 65 mph (105 kph) during the race.

Solar cars are testbeds for aerodynamic efficiency and lightweight construction, as well as for solar cells, batteries, and electric motors. While a commercial solar car isn’t coming anytime soon, the engineering developments from these events do help to promote the improvement of transportaion efficiency.

Link: American Solar Challenge

There’s more news on the sustainable and renewable energy front in Europe. Not only is wind power nearly on par with natural gas in Europe, but in Sweden now, biomass has passed oil as the top source for energy generation. The most recent figures indicate that biomass energy production reached 115 terrawatt hours in 2009, representing 32% of all energy consumption. At the same time, oil-based fuels were used to produce 112 TWh.  Biofuel use is expected to increase, while fossil fuel use should further decline in the coming years.

Biofueled combined heat and power (CHP) plants generate heat for more than half of the multifamily dwelling units in Sweden, as well as producing electricity. Sweden has a goal to have renewable energy reach 50% of all energy consumed in the country by 2020 and to be independent from imported fossil fuel for all transportation by 2030.

Wood is the source for the vast majority of the fuel used. However, the increased use of wood for energy has led to higher prices for other products requiring logs and paper pulp.

via: EERE Program News

Photo courtesy of: Mattias Hedström, wikipedia commons

The variety of vehicles in competition for the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize is amazing. There are 21 teams still in competition, spread across three categories. But rather than converging on one particular general design style, as the solar car competitions have tended to do, the X Prize competitors vary hugely. Some, including the amp’d Sky and American HyPower Prius, are essentially just modified conventional vehicles. Others are completely custom built. A number of the Alternative division vehicles are more unusual looking, including three wheeled vehicles fielded by Future Vehicle Technologies and Zap Electric. Alternative tandem class vehicles also include the enclosed motorcycle by Monotracer and the extremely narrow (39″ wide) Commuter Cars’ Tango.

Most teams have only a single vehicle in the competition, but one team, Edison2, has vehicles entered in all three classifications. And while most of the teams still in competition are comprised of teams of professional engineers, there is also the West Philly Hybrid X Team which includes students from an after school program of the Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering based in West Philadelphia High School, a public high school serving one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia.

The testing was delayed for a couple hours as a thunderstorm swept across southest Michigan, but vehicles were on the track later in the afternoon. Groups of six vehicles at a time were on the track while EcoGeek was there, and we have pictures of many of the different vehicles after the cut.

Read more…

The US Federal Trade Commission has announced a final ruling on new labels for light bulbs.  The labels will break down the “lighting facts” of bulbs much like a nutrition label on food products.  With CFLs, LEDs and other lighting technologies filling the shelves alongside incandescents, the labels will help consumers find what they’re looking for.

The major change that these labels bring is using lumens to indicate the brightness of the bulb instead of watts, that way all bulbs will use the same terminology and consumers can compare them easily.  Other statistics listed on the labels will be:  yearly energy cost, the bulb’s life expectancy, light appearance (on a scale of warm to cool), energy used (wattage) and, for CFLs, a warning that it contains mercury.

The clear labeling of cost and energy savings over time, could help more efficient lighting win over consumers who haven’t made the switch yet.

The new labels should start showing up in the middle of next year.

via TreeHugger

A number of unusual vehicles are on the track at Michigan International Speedway (MIS) in Brooklyn MI this week. The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize competition is now in the knockout stages, and the competitors have come to MIS to participate in a series of trials.

Wednesday and Thursday are media days as the testing was taking place on the 2-mile track. Testing includes City, Urban, and Highway segments. Rather than being a simple endurance race, there are speed limits and a number of starts and stops, in order to better simulate real-world driving conditions. At this point, competitors have to achieve at least 67 MPG equivalent and CO2 emissions of not more than 300g/mile or be knocked out of the competition.

The goal of the automotive X Prize is to promote the development of a new generation of viable, safe, affordable and super fuel efficient vehicles that people want to buy. The X Prize consists of Mainstream and Alternative class, with the Alternative further subdivided into side-by-side and tandem seating divisions. While performance is an important part of the competition, factors including manufacturability, marketability, safety, and durability are also part of the final evaluation. The Mainstream winner will receive $5 million of the total $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize purse, and $2.5 million apiece will also be awarded to the winner of each of the Alternative divisions.

There is also an opportunity to win $3000 in the fan voting. We’ll have more coverage from this stage of the X Prize here on EcoGeek. The final winners are scheduled to be announced in September.